LISTSERV Maestro 8.1-4 Help

"Forward to a Friend" Settings

The "Forward to a Friend" Settings screen allows you to enable or disable the forward to a friend feature for the given mailing.

With this feature, a special "Forward this email to a friend" link is embedded into the actual message. When a recipient clicks on this link, a special page opens that is used to enter the email addresses of any friends that the recipients wants to forward the message to. Optionally, a personal message may also be entered and will be included in the forwarded emails. Once the recipient triggers the forwarding, a copy of the same email that the recipient initially received will be delivered to the supplied friend-addresses.

When the forwarded email arrives at the friend-recipients, it will contain an additional preamble that informs the new recipients that this message was forwarded to them by another user. This preamble will also contain the user supplied personal message (if any, see above).

The forwarded email will also contain the same "Forward this email to a friend" link that was in the original mail, giving the friend-recipient the opportunity to forward this message to more friends.

The system will also keep a record of all forwards, with a detail level that corresponds to the selected tracking level, so that you can later view reports on how many forwards were triggered and how many conversions occurred, i.e. how many of the forward recipients subsequently joined the dataset the list belongs to themselves (see {{*SubscribeURL}} below).

Note: While the friends generally receive a message with the same content as the original message (plus the special preamble), there is a possibility that the original message and the forwarded message may differ slightly. If the original message used merge fields in profile field values of the original recipient, then these fields will be freshly merged during each forwarding. This means that if the original recipient's profile fields have changed since the original mailing, then the forwarded message will contain different merge field values than the original message. Also, the forwarding will only work while the original subscriber list still exists and the original recipient is still a subscriber of that list.

If the feature is enabled, then you also need make sure that the conditions described on the screen are correctly met and the settings are configured accordingly:

• Drop-Ins: Drop-in usage must be enabled for the message and the special system drop-in {{*ForwardToFriendURL}} and/or the drop-in {{*SocialMedia}} must appear at least once in the message body (if the message has several body parts, like a HTML mail with a text alternative, then one of these special system drop-ins must appear at least once in each body part).
  
  The {{*ForwardToFriendURL}} system drop-in will later be replaced with a URL that, if clicked, will send the recipient to the special page where the friend's email address can be entered. Therefore, if you use this system drop-in, you should make sure that it appears in a matching context at a location where it can be easily found (and its use understood) by the recipient.
  
  For example, in a plain mail, you probably want to embed the system drop-in in some explanatory text, similar to this:

  Click the link below if you want to forward this message to any of your friends:
  {{*ForwardToFriendURL}}

  In a HTML mail, you should also use the system drop-in not only in the correct context, but also as the value of the "href"-attribute of an <a> tag, so that it will actually be rendered as a clickable link, similar to this:

  <a href="{{*ForwardToFriendURL}}">Click here</a> to forward this message to any of your friends.

  The {{*SocialMedia}} system drop-in will later be replaced with special share links for the configured social media applications. One of these share links will be an "email" link that acts just like the forward-to-friend URL does (see above). See here for details about social media sharing.
   
• Forward to a Friend Preamble: Whenever a message is forwarded via the forward to a friend feature, a special preamble is prefixed to the actual message so that the recipient knows the original recipient of this email, and that it has been forwarded on by a friend. This is also important so that the recipient does not think that the email is spam. Therefore, the preamble is mandatory and can not be left empty.
  
  If the message is an HTML message with a text alternative, then two preambles must be entered. One for the HTML part (which may also contain HTML code) and one for the text alternative part.

  {{*SenderAddress} : The preamble must contain at least one occurrence of this special system drop-in, which will be replaced (during the forwarding process) with the email address of the recipient who triggered the forward. While the {{*SenderAddress}} system drop-in is mandatory in the preamble, there are two more special system drop-ins that are optional to use.

  {{*SubscribeURL}} : This system drop-in will be replaced with a URL of the subscribe page for the Subscriber List that was initially used in the recipients definition. You can use this URL to include a link in the preamble that allows the friend-recipient to also become a subscriber of the original list. If left out, then no such URL will be included in the preamble.
  
  Note: Only subscriptions that happen through a click on this URL in a forwarded message will be counted as "conversions" and reported in the forward to a friend reports.

  {{*UserMessage}} : This system drop-in will be replaced with the user message that will be supplied by the forwarding user, at the time the forward is triggered. See below for details about this special system drop-in.

  Note: No other drop-ins (other than the three described above) may be used in the preamble. In addition, these three special drop-ins may only be used in the preamble and nowhere else in the body of the message.

  Use the Actions link at the top right of the preamble field to open a context menu with the following options:

  • Save Current Preamble as Default: The current content of the preamble is saved as a default so you can re-use it in other mail jobs (see below).
  • Reset Preamble to Default: If you have previously saved your own default preamble (with the Save Current Preamble as Default option), then this option allows you to re-use this default for the current job. The preamble will be replaced with whatever preamble was last saved as your personal default.
  • Reset Preamble to System-Default: The preamble will be replaced with a system-defined default preamble. This option is always available.

  Note: See below for examples of what the system-default preamble looks like.

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The {{*UserMessage}} System Drop-In

The {{*UserMessage}} system drop-in in the preamble allows the inclusion of a personal message supplied by the forwarding user in the preamble. For this system drop-in, the following rules are used:

• If the {{*UserMessage}} drop-in is not present in the preamble, then the forwarding user will not have the option of entering a personal message, which means no personal message will be included in the preamble for the forwarded message.
• If the {{*UserMessage}} drop-in is present, then the forwarding user will have the option of entering a personal message, but this personal message is optional. If the user does enter a message, then it will be used to replace the system drop-in (as described below). If the user does not enter a message, then the system drop-in will simply be removed from the preamble (in other words, it will be replaced with an empty string).
• The {{*UserMessage}} drop-in uses a special syntax that allows you to define a prefix and a suffix for the personal user message, which will not appear if the user does not enter a personal message at all. A prefix and suffix are only included if the user actually supplies a non-empty personal message. See below for details on how to define a prefix and/or suffix for the user message.

To include a user message anywhere in the preamble, without a special prefix and/or suffix, simply type the name of the system drop-in {{*UserMessage}} (with the opening and closing tags that are appropriate to your message) at the desired location. The system drop-in will then be replaced with the user message or an empty string, if left empty.

If you want to define a prefix and/or suffix for the user message, then use the following syntax:

{{*UserMessage prefix#VALUE#suffix}}

where you replace "prefix" with the desired prefix text and "suffix" with the desired suffix text, using the following rules:

• The string #VALUE# (including the "#" enclosing characters) must appear between prefix and suffix (if any are present).
• Both prefix and/or suffix may be empty (may be left out).
• Both prefix and suffix may contain linebreaks. The linebreaks will become part of the prefix/suffix.
• Any characters after "*UserMessage" and before "#VALUE#" will be part of the prefix, including all linebreaks (even linebreaks that appear immediately before "#VALUE#"), except for any whitespace that follows immediately after the word "*UserMessage" and that appears on the same line as the word "*UserMessage". Such whitespace is ignored. Also, if the first line contains only whitespace after the word "*UserMessage", then the linebreak at the end of this line will also be ignored and will not be part of the prefix. (See below for examples.)
• Any characters after "#VALUE#" and before the closing drop-in tag "}}" (or whatever closing tag is applicable in your message) will be part of the suffix, including all linebreaks, even linebreaks that appear immediately after "#VALUE#" or before the closing tag "}}". (See below for examples.)

If the user does not supply a user message, then the whole system drop-in (starting with the opening tag and ending with the closing tag) will be replaced with an empty string (the prefix and suffix will also not appear in this case).

If the user supplies a non-empty user message, then the whole system drop-in (again starting with the opening tag and ending with the closing tag) will be replaced with the text that is built by linking the prefix, user message, and suffix. Or, in other words, in the string "prefix#VALUE#suffix," the "#VALUE#" part (including the enclosing "#" characters) is replaced with the user message, and the resulting string (including prefix and suffix) is used to replace the system drop-in.

The following are some examples for {{*UserMessage}} drop-ins with prefix and/or suffix. In the examples, linebreaks are shown as "¶" for better readability, and the prefix is marked with a green background, while the suffix is marked with a yellow background.

Simple prefix and suffix:

{{*UserMessage Prefix Text#Value#Suffix Text}}

Prefix and suffix with linebreaks:

Note: The whitespace before the first prefix character is not part of the prefix itself because all whitespace between "*UserMessage" and the prefix is ignored, while the whitespace in the first suffix line (after "#VALUE#") is part of the suffix:

{{*UserMessage       Prefix First Line¶
Prefix Second Line#Value#     Suffix First Line¶
Suffix Second Line}}

Prefix and suffix with linebreaks, with linebreaks before the first lines and after the last lines:

Notes: The whitespace and the linebreak on the first line are not part of the prefix because if the first line contains only whitespace and a linebreak after "*UserMessage", then both the whitespace and the linebreak are ignored. In comparison, the whitespace and the linebreak immediately after "#VALUE#" are part of the suffix, so the suffix has actually three lines (where the first line is empty except for whitespace).

Also, the prefix ends with a linebreak; therefore, the user message will start on a new line after the prefix. Similarly, the suffix ends with a linebreak; therefore, whatever comes after the drop-in will start on a new line after the suffix:

{{*UserMessage ¶
Prefix First Line¶
Prefix Second Line¶
#Value# ¶
Suffix Second Line¶
Suffix Third Line¶
}}

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The System-Default Preamble

The system-default preamble for a plain text message looks like this:

This is a forwarded message.

We have received a request from "{{*SenderAddress}}" to forward this message to you.

You have not been added to any lists, and you will not receive any additional messages as a result of this forward.
If you would like to register to receive messages like this one directly, click on the link below:
{{*SubscribeURL}}
(Or copy & paste this URL into the address field of your browser.)
{{*UserMessage

"{{*SenderAddress}}" included this personal message for you:

#VALUE#
}}-------------------------------------------------------

The system-default preamble for a HTML message looks like this, in HTML-code form:

<p><b>This is a forwarded message.</b></p>
<p>We have received a request from "<b>{{*SenderAddress}}</b>" to forward this message to you.</p>
<p>You have not been added to any lists, and you will not receive any additional messages as a result of this forward.<br>
<a href="{{*SubscribeURL}}">Click here</a> if you would like to register to receive messages like this one directly.</p>
{{*UserMessage
<p>"{{*SenderAddress}}" included this personal message for you:</p>
<p><i>#VALUE#</i></p>}}
<hr>

and rendered as actual HTML:

This is a forwarded message.

We have received a request from "{{*SenderAddress}}" to forward this message to you.

You have not been added to any lists, and you will not receive any additional messages as a result of this forward.
Click here if you would like to register to receive messages like this one directly.

{{*UserMessage

"{{*SenderAddress}}" included this personal message for you:

#VALUE#

}}

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